Chapter 16

Ecks' entire body was filled in a pure white aura, his face showed a look of pure fury, and his eyes were glowing a pure white as the dark blue vulpine floated in the air, across from him stood a dark red vulpine, his eyes were pitch black, Rage leaped at Ecks, but as he tried to drive his claws into the blue vulpine's face, he met an invisible force which sent him back against the wall with amazing impact, the red fox hit the floor, he stood up, a look of fear on his face, he now knew he didn't have a chance, Ecks' true power had been revealed, but Rage became angered at the fact that he was actually afraid.

Zivia was still standing, witnessing the spectacle, "Unbelievable." Was all she could muster to say.

"I will not be defeated by the likes of you!" Rage yelled as he leaped into the air again, but as he did this, Ecks held out his paw, a white ball of energy starting to form in it, a second later, a sphere was in Ecks' paw, completely white with a small blue sphere inside of it, as Rage drew closer to Ecks, the white ball of energy erupted from his paw, shooting towards the red vulpine, unfortunately for Rage, the energy ball hit him square in the chest, knocking him backwards, as the red vulpine flew back, Ecks looked at a barbell that had two fifty pound weight attached to each side, it suddenly flew at Rage, the red vulpine slammed against the wall, but before he could even drop to the floor, the heavy barbell slammed into him, pinning Rage against the wall as he screamed in pain, Ecks floated to Rage's position, the two vulpine were at least twenty feet above the floor, Ecks came face-to-face with the evil vulpine, set to kill.

"Ecks!" Cross voice came back, "You wouldn't kill your own brother would you?" He said, his eyes were back to their normal gold.

"Brother?" Ecks asked as his eyes changed back to their silver gleam.

An evil smirk appeared on Cross' face as his eyes filled up with blackness, "Too easy." Rage said as he threw the barbell off of him and grabbed Ecks by the throat, the two started falling to the floor, Rage held Ecks towards the ground, when they hit, Ecks' body smashed against the ground with such a force that it knocked Fox and Krystal's limp bodies backwards.

"ECKS!!" Zivia screamed in horror.

When the dust settled, Rage was left standing over the damaged blue vulpine, "Now nothing stands in my way, maybe I'll start with that little vixen of his." Rage snickered as he walked towards Zivia.

Ecks' eyes shot open, once again flushed over with white, "But I'm not finished with you." He said, levitating into the air, Rage looked back, to his horror, Ecks was alive and well, the blue vulpine shot his right paw forward, a large white beam erupting from it, Rage couldn't move out of the way in time as the beam shot straight through him, Rage felt nothing as the beam held him in the air, he was then let down and looked at Ecks, laughing.

"That was your attack? How pitiful!" He snickered.

"Look behind you." Ecks said with a smirk, showing his right fang, Rage did this and saw a familiar dark red vulpine standing behind him, he turned back to face Ecks, who was now floating right in front of him.

"So this is your true form," Ecks said, examining the vulpine, the fur colors were reversed from those of Cross, as Rage had pitch black fur, the X on his head was blood red, and the tip of his tail was also red, Rage's eyes were black, except for the iris, which was red, and now had a look of terror in them, "Now I don't have to hold back." Ecks grinned.

"I want a piece too." Cross said, glaring at the black vulpine and turning his head to each side, making a popping noise.

Cross jumped into the air and landed a heavy roundhouse kick to the back of Rage's head, sending him flying towards the wall to his right, Ecks manipulated the air into a sphere and shot it towards Rage, as soon as the black vulpine hit the wall, the sphere of air impacted on his back, causing immense pain, Ecks lifted Rage up into the air with his telekinesis and held him at least fifteen feet above the floor, Ecks held out his paw and pointed at Rage with his index finger, suddenly, the black vulpine's body became engulfed in blue flames, causing the black vulpine to let out a shriek of pain, Cross leaped high into the air and came down on the black fox with an axe kick onto his stomach, slamming him into the floor back-first, Rage couldn't fight anymore, he was too injured, he had been defeated, Ecks floated to where the vulpine lay.

"You can kill me, but I will return, hate will always reside inside of him." Rage said as blood came from his mouth.

"Thanks for the warning, but I think we've got it covered." Ecks said as his paw started to glow pure white, even brighter than the aura around his body, the blue vulpine placed his paw on Rage's chest, and then, the black vulpine became surrounded by a white aura, much like the one around Ecks' body, but suddenly, Rage exploded, shooting blood in all directions of the room, Ecks' eyes turned back to their normal silver shine as the aura faded from his body, which was covered in blood.

Zivia was still standing, she fell to the floor though as her body had was in extreme pain from being slammed on her back in such a harsh manner, "Zivia!" Ecks yelled, flying to the vixens aid, "Are you okay?" Ecks asked, tears in his eyes.

"Yeah, you didn't think that little punk could take me out did you?" Zivia said, her eyes heavy from exaustion, Fox came to as well.

"Cross, we need to get them to the medical bay." Ecks told his brother.

Cross walked over to Fox to help him up, "I can take myself, you carry Krys, she's in worse shape than I am." Fox said.

"Okay then." Cross said, picking Krystal up with the greatest of ease, it was funny, Krystal was a good nine inches taller than Cross and at least thirty pounds heavier, and Cross held her on his shoulder as if it was nothing.

"Meet you in the medical bay." Cross said before dashing out of the doors to the gym.

"So, will that happen again anytime soon?" Fox asked the blue vulpine who was helping Zivia to her feet.

"No, during the fight I went into Rage's mind, which is also where I found Cross, he let Rage get to him by telling him that I knew what Chaos did, and he told him that I did nothing about it, the truth is that I never knew what happened to Cross, they told me that he was killed in a training exercise, I found out the truth one day before you guys showed up at the base, so Rage shouldn't come back at all." Ecks explained.

"Well it looks like we won't be searching for any bases for a while." Fox said as he chuckled, which caused him to cringe a bit as his ribs were in pain.

"Let's get back to the medical bay, I need to heal you guys as much as I can." Ecks said as he and Zivia floated down the hall with Fox limping beside them.

Hax was sitting up in the bed with Alexia in the chair beside him, Falco and Slippy were also in the medical bay, waiting for Fox and the others, "What the hell is taking so long?" Falco paced back and forth in the room.

"Don't worry, they'll be back." Just as Alexia said this, Cross walked in, holding Krystal over his shoulder.

"You!" Hax yelled, glaring at the red vulpine.

"Hey, calm down, this time it's really me, Fox and Ecks are right behind me," Cross told them as he walked over to the empty bed beside Hax and laying her down, "See? It's truly me."

As Cross predicted, Fox and Ecks walked into the room, Fox sat down on an empty bed beside Krystal, and Ecks helped Zivia onto the last remaining bed, coincidentally there were four beds in the medical bay, Zivia quickly fell asleep.

"I can check your injuries," Ecks said, "Slippy can you help?" Ecks said, taking a seat in the chair beside Zivia's bed, which was also beside Fox's bed.

"Sure thing, just let me get my device." Slippy said, walking out of the medical bay.

"Device?" Ecks questioned.

"It's a hand-held X-Ray that Slip keeps for when we get injured on missions." Fox answered.

"Okay then we'll have that as a double-check method to confirm if I'm right, here Fox, I'll start with you." Ecks said, closing his eyes, he scanned the light brown vulpine with his mind, this was another of his powers, he could scan anyone for anything with his mind, he could read thoughts, memories, even detect health problems, a few seconds later his eyes opened, "You have bruised ribs, you should be good to go in a few days, just don't over do it." Ecks said.

"Thanks Doc." Fox laughed as did everyone else who was conscious, but then yelped a bit from the pain in his ribs.

"I also scanned over the other two, Krystal has broken ribs, I'll do what I can to heal her, but I won't try to heal her broken bones." The blue vulpine said.

"Why not?" Fox asked.

"Because the process of healing broken bones is more painful than the process of breaking them, so I refuse to do so." Ecks explained.

"Oh, that's a pretty good reason." Fox agreed with the blue vulpine.

"And Zivia seems to have taken the most damage, she has broken ribs, and a bruised spine," Ecks said with an upset look as a tear came to his eye, "I was supposed to protect her."

"Don't worry, she'll be alright," Fox did his best to comfort the young vulpine, "There was nothing you could do to prevent it, you can say that nothing will ever happen to her, but sometimes you just can't help it." Fox said, placing his paw on the vulpine's shoulder.

"Yeah, and none of this wouldn't have happened if it weren;t for me," Cross said, walking over to his brother, "Thank you Ecks, I don't know why I believed the stuff Rage said."

"It's okay, the good thing is we got rid of him." Ecks said, "Now I'm gonna start the healing." Ecks added, standing up and floating over to Krystal.

"While you do that, I'm going to sleep." Fox said, lying down in his bed, shortly falling asleep afterwards.

"I'm gonna go back to my room," Falco said, "I was already trying to get some sleep before all this crap happened." The blue avian added as he left the medical bay.

It was a few short moments of healing when Ecks came to Zivia's bedside, Slippy had returned with the X-Ray and confirmed that Ecks was right about each injury, before Ecks started to heal Zivia, he placed his paw on her forehead and smiled, brushing the hair away from her beautiful bright yellow eyes.

"You really do love her huh?" Cross asked.

"Yeah, but when I talk to her I can't find words to express how much I do." Ecks smiled as he still rubbed the vixen's forehead.

"Eventually the words will come," Hax said, sitting up in his bed still, "When the time comes, you'll know what to say."

"Thanks Hax." The blue vulpine said as he closed his eyes and started to heal Zivia as much as possible.

1:45 PM

A week had passed since the ordeal with Rage, Krystal and Zivia were still in the medical bay, Ecks didn't even leave Zivia's side for a second, he was determined to stay until she was fully recovered. Fox had recovered a few days ago as had Hax, the first thing Hax wanted to do when he recovered was hack a few databases, unfortunately for the team Slippy didn't find anything on the chip that Hax brought back from Corneria, so they were basically back a square one, Fox came in to check on Krystal every other hour and Cross usually came in to chat with them, Krystal would be ready to leave the next day but it would still be at least a week before Zivia could as her injuries were the most severe.

"I wish I could be done with this crap already." Zivia complained as she sat up in the bed. The vixen was wearing a sky-blue tank-top, and a pair of white shorts that, yep, only went a few inches down her thigh, Ecks wasn't complaining however, even though he was a gentleman, he appreciated the vixen's beauty.

"I'm still here with you Zivia." Ecks said with a smile, floating to her bedside, Krystal was asleep and Ecks had gone through his daily healing with each of them, every day he healed them each a bit more as their broken bones recovered on their wore a pure white tee-shirt, a pair of dark blue jean shorts, and his black sneakers, Ecks' white head-hair had grown out a bit and at times he had to brush the strands away from his face.

"That's the only good part." Zivia returned the smile.

"You'll be better within a week," Ecks assured the orange vixen, he found it easier to talk to her in the past days, but still felt a strange feeling in his gut when he did so, "And there's something I want to ask you Zivia." He said, sitting down in the chair beside her bed.

"What's that?"

"Would you..." The blue vulpine's voice made an odd squeaking noise, making the vixen giggle.

"Would I what?" She asked with a smile.

Ecks took a breath, "Would you like to...you know...go on a date with me sometime?" Ecks asked nervously, his cheeks turning purple as he did so, Fox had told him about these 'dates' and Ecks decided what better way to get to know the one he loved?

"Yes Ecks, I would love to go on a date with you." Zivia agreed, Ecks didn't show it except with a smile but inside he screaming at the top of his lungs with joy, the blue fox slowly leaned towards the vixen for a kiss, when their lips met in a pure state of passion, neither of the two wanted this moment to end, Fox and Falco walked in but stopped as they noticed that Ecks and Zivia's muzzles were locked together.

"Well alright then." They both said in unison as they turned around and left the room.

Ecks pulled away and slowly crawled onto the bed with Zivia, the light orange vixen pulled Ecks' paw around her chest as they both lay there, seemingly falling into the depths of slumber at the same time.

Author's Note: Sorry for this chapter being a bit short. Anyway, I don't have anything really to say right now so, Until the next update, later.

Ignorant? Me? Ha, I don't even know what that means. ~Metallic Soul